THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN
A slapstick show, where clowns get top billing, has been headline TV and headline newspaper content for some days, as the Covid Public Inquiry happens live before the public’s very eyes, at least when the best clowns are performing, and that included Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain on 1 November. At least judging from the public elements of the Covid Public Inquiry recently, it will be shown to be a total waste of time and money.
An abiding impression from the witnesses is that, if enough oil can be poured on the waters of chaos in Downing Street and enough vitriol stirred against Boris Johnson, already totally discredited, that may distract from the failures of the witnesses themselves and their mates. There is a strong trend today outside the CPI towards doubting the wisdom of the lockdown, which Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are known to have resisted strongly. Even though Boris Johnson displayed serious flaws and misjudgements and was the author of his own demise, there were successes as the pandemic wore on, such as the vaccine programme. A step back is needed to ensure the fog of chaos does not obscure other lessons.
WHAT IS THE POINT?
The biggest lesson and issue should centre on lockdowns and their impact and how to avoid them in future; but it seems as if the CPI is not even questioning whether it was right to lock down compared with say Sweden; instead, it is perhaps assuming lockdowns were the right answer. And this when it is the lockdowns which have not just almost bankrupted the country economically but seriously damaged the values of resilience and personal responsibility, which underpin any successful democratic country. Alternative approaches to lockdown are essential. If there were to be another pandemic in the next few years, a lockdown would be unthinkable as there is no money to afford furloughs etc. The second biggest issue coming from this element of the Inquiry is perhaps how ill prepared the country was for anything other than a flu pandemic to which the planned response was to let it spread across the country: that may well be covered by the Inquiry, and of course that preparation took place under the Conservatives pre-Johnson as PM. The third perhaps is that the Civil Service and its structures, combined with Public Health England, the NHS and the rest of health care and its structures, and their respective cultures, were seriously deficient and in need of reform to meet unfamiliar risks; and that looks like it may be glossed over. Time will tell.
THE AIMS OF THE CPI
The most eye-catching headline from selective reporting was “Johnson: let elderly accept fate” as at least one man’s notes of the Covid period recorded the then Prime Minister wondering if Covid “was nature’s way of dealing with old people”. The tone and purpose of reporting was to damn an already damned Boris Johnson, and that was the clear intention of certain witnesses. Yet this particular musing of the PM raises a central issue of the handling of Covid: when the average age of deaths by Covid was 83, was it correct to almost bankrupt the UK and severely damage the lives and prospects of younger people, and to be so obsessed, as so many people were, with old and frail people dying a few months’ earlier than they might otherwise have done? Without Covid, that is a normal occurrence when the very old get sick with say the flu, and it is nature at work. This is but one glaring example of the misuse of this Inquiry, the aims of which are set out in its terms of reference:
AIM 1: “to examine the response and impact of the pandemic and produce a factual narrative account”, and this includes particularly “the public health response”, “the response of the health and care sector” and “the economic response and its impact”.
AIM 2: “the lessons to be learnt from the above to inform preparation for future pandemics across the UK”.
Notably the terms of reference do not include “finding fault” or passing judgement, and at least certain broadcasters such as the BBC have emphasised that. Yet that is precisely what reports are doing. Could this be because witnesses are using and being allowed to use the publicity to self-serve, defend themselves, and cast blame anywhere but on themselves?
Could it also be that the reports of the CPI hearings could be used for political smearing and rhetoric, not least for election purposes, and that those conducting the Inquiry are very aware of that?
JUDGEMENTS MADE ON SELECTIVE EVIDENCE – MUD STICKS
The Inquiry is due to publish its report finally in 2026, with interim reports envisaged, presumably as phases are completed. The Inquiry is employing at least 3 interrogators of witnesses, all barristers and King’s Counsel. In varying degrees, they behave like prosecutors. To have lawyers running the show is a mistake, if progress is desirable quickly. It was very striking how WhatsApp messages and other texts from “evidence” gathered so far are being quoted, and the minutiae examined, including verbal conversations, with particular words forensically examined. These come from Ministers, Officials, civil servants, advisers, and all others involved in especially the workings and work of 10 Downing Street and particular departments such as Health. The context often is not explained or gets forgotten. No sense of the mood of the maker of a communication gets conveyed. In the pandemic, as with any crisis where risk is exacerbated by lack of knowledge, things were written or said, perhaps, with hindsight, foolishly, for example under pressure, when angry, or frustrated, or when interrupted, or in shocked reaction, or simply brainstorming, or a host of other emotional circumstances: for these then to be given highlights and used to draw conclusions a few hours after being broadcast by the Inquiry is simply wrong. The analysis of them is pedantic. The process demonstrates a distinct ignorance and lack of empathy with how humans go about work. The quoting of selected sentences, with no sensible context, as if evidence, is amateurish at best, and perhaps more sinister motives are at work. Is there a risk that the CPI’s ultimate conclusions will be shaped by media reaction?
It is important that the most important “witnesses” in this phase of the Inquiry were active participants in the Government and NHS and healthcare processes and systems, provision of information and advice at the time, and management of teams and so on. For example, the portrayal of chaos in 10 Downing Steet damns the Officials who were in charge for example of the Cabinet Office or running 10 Downing Street. Those people will all be concerned, no matter how upstanding they may be, to ensure minimum mud sticks to themselves, and so also concerned to ensure that such mud sticks elsewhere. This is true too of those running the NHS, not just its Ministers, as their incompetence is baldly portrayed by some. Boris Johnson is of course a prime mud magnet.
Interrogation before the camera and live performances provide a “soap box” or “free hit” for witnesses. They can freely express opinions and feelings, as the prosecutors encourage them to do, to create impressions which they choose to best serve themselves, without having to justify them with detailed proof. Pejorative language can be used and is being used.
THE FOG OF CHAOS
The CPI, through its prosecutors and the witnesses they chose to cross-examine, painted a picture of chaos in Government, especially the Cabinet Office and No 10 Downing Street, and of a Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who had no idea what he was doing and who was carefree about the seriousness of Covid. This was what the media chose to major on. Of course, ultimate responsibility rests with Ministers and the Prime Minister especially for all decisions, good or bad. But politicians come and go: the lessons for the future lie in the underlying system and mechanisms, cultures and competencies of those who inform the Ministers and who are supposed to do real things, remembering that Ministers do not actually implement actions, but officials do.
The chaos focus befogs the underlying problems. For example, in the first few months of Covid, there was little real knowledge about the virus. What however became abundantly clear by the end of March 2020 was that there were in fact in place no proper preparations in terms of detailed plans of action, or necessary stocks of materials, for a pandemic except a flu where the predetermined reaction was to let it rip. Ministers were entirely dependent on Sage scientists and the NHS and other healthcare bodies, and advisers and officials, for knowledge. If anything, Dominic Cummings says is taken seriously, it is for example notable in his written statement he says:
At paragraph 101, there was a lack of any paper produced to the PM’s office about SAGE discussions. At paragraph 103, he says that even by 16-18 March the PM and Number 10 thought SAGE understood Plan A (herd immunity) and there was no alternative. At paragraph 104, Number 10 was told in February SAGE (a) did not support testing incomers at the border; (b) thought ramping up testing was not possible and (c)assumed test and tracing would stop and (d) opposed stopping mass gatherings. At paragraph 250, on 20 March Jenny Harries, Health senior executive, said there was a perfectly adequate supply of PPE.
A further abiding impression from the witnesses is a lack of professionalism and real expertise among senior officials most prominent in the pandemic.
Also, the CPI public hearings gave the impression Boris Johnson was disinterested and spent February half term at Chevening doing personal things (in fact he attended 3 Covid meetings). However, it is clear, from all witnesses reported live on TV and in DC’s statement, that at least until after 18 March Ministers had been told that “herd immunity” was the way to go, and SAGE scientists had been on TV saying so. The PM was told that all preparations were fully in place, when they were not.
Helen Macnamara, a very senior Civil Servant, was at pains to say that in effect every day at 10 Downing Street Covid rules were broken, yet she seems to have done nothing about it at the time. In fact, it is hardly surprising, as, on a busy day, it is said over 400 people work there, a place designed maybe for tens, not hundreds, of people. Distancing was impossible. But they had to go to work, unlike so many who stayed at home, and those people will have known the risk, and a large number got Covid. They were brave people serving in the national interest, but the media ‘s main concern was rule breaking. And only with hindsight, was Helen Macnamara’s.
Is it any wonder there was chaos when the information from the System, as DC referred to so often, was so woefully wrong or of poor quality? Is it surprising that in the second half of March, when the unworried scientists and others were now doing a complete volte face, that decision making at the top was chaotic? And Government seems to have been forced into Lockdown with extreme forecasts which never proved remotely true. The lessons to be learnt are not that Downing Street should not be chaotic but in the behaviour of officials and experts so called, with fair important questions at the top of the agenda such as why the past experience of Taiwan and South Korea, who dealt well with the pandemic and did not trash their economies, was never taken seriously and used by officials in Whitehall or Public Health England.
The CPI surely needs to be agonising over how so much misinformation and useless data was produced throughout the pandemic, as became evident time after time. Instead there is it seems little concentration on the merits of lockdowns and the damage they cause, compared to the alternative of no lockdown and protecting the vulnerable, as demanded by the Great Barrington Declaration signed by thousands of experts at the time (See Sherbhert 19th October 2020 COULD ANY GOVERNMENT EVER DO THE RIGHT THING IN THE FACE OF COVID POLITICS). It is reported that hardly any evidence is being sought by the CPI from those who opposed lockdowns, and so, it seems, the biggest question can only be left unanswered for the future.
LESSONS
The remit of the CPI is to learn the lessons so that the UK is better equipped to handle future pandemics. Have not Government Departments, the NHS, each NHS Trust, Care homes, the Treasury, Public Health England, local councils, Mayors of cities, educational establishments and all other institutions materially involved in the challenges of the pandemic already done their assessments of what went well and what could be done better for the future? Have not scientists and relevant experts, health professionals, made their suggestions by now? It is even reasonable to expect that the main things to improve are already being implemented. For example, how to improve protection of the most vulnerable seems a most urgent topic, and then maybe lockdowns can be made less likely.? Would it not be a good idea for all those institutions and people to publish in an orderly way their conclusions and action plans? Or if they have no such plans or have done nothing, to explain why?
After all there could be another pandemic before the report of CPI is published in 2026. Indeed, if such things were published now, perhaps the CPI could wrap up its findings sooner. If in fact any of the institutions mentioned above have not identified the main improvements to be made already, that may provide the answer as to what really went wrong in the pandemic: too much incompetence at the top and lack of leadership, ignoring 10 Downing Street.
If lockdown as an idea is not confined to the past, and if major reform of the System, that is public service governmental structures and cultures, are not implemented, learning lessons will be a fig leaf idea. As more CPI public hearings appear, the question to be asked in respect of its approach must be how it advances the learning for the future handling of pandemics.
Perhaps one of the greatest lessons of the pandemic is the national need to have a balanced approach to death, especially of loved ones, which is something nearly all people will experience, Covid or no Covid. The attitude during Covid was extraordinary as if death by Covid was different to death by say heart disease, a far bigger killer. That attitude possibly meant that the younger generations with the majority of life in front of them were sacrificed, not just to save the NHS, which is supposed to serve the public, but to add a few months or a year or two to the lives of very old and frail people who have already lived their lives. Let us not forget that the average age of a Covid death was 83. In world wars young lives are sacrificed because only they can fight so that the weaker and older may live. Maybe in the Covid war it was the chance for the old to bear risk for the sake of the young. It is likely perhaps that if you asked an 83-year-old whether it would be better to poison the lives of the younger generations and set back economic prosperity for years than to let an 83-year-old take their chances, they would have chosen the latter. Then, would there have been any lockdowns? Do we need this Covid public Inquiry to continue for 3 more years?
All these issues were addressed at Sherbhert during the pandemic. See also – More Covid – Thinking Forward, and Covid 19 – Keeping Perspective on Fear and Death, and other Covid articles in 2020 and 2021.
